Anberlin Band • Page 255

Yeah the album art for DITW is incredible.

I also think that album gets unnecessary flack. If NTFP - Cities - Vital are top tier, DITW is the first one for me on the second tier.

 

agreed on both counts. Jordan Butcher's art direction run with the band between NS and Lowborn was unparalleled. he also did the art for Nevertake, but (like the rerecording itself) that felt like a major step down.

 

dark is the way has a banger of an opener, the rest just doesn't do anything for me

plus at the time of buying cds was the only way to hear the music i was let down when i bought it

 

Some days I think modern age is their best song - absolutely incredible. Vital is probably my favorite and my choice for best anberlin album but I will say someone anyone is one of the weakest tracks for me and it bummed me out that it, above all else, was the set staple.

 

Dark is the way I think is the last new CD I ever bought

 

Art of War is a top 10 Anberlin song for me. Glad DITW exists for that song alone. Overall I still really love the distinct moody vibe of that album, I'd rank it just outside by favorites from them.

 

Down is a top anberlin song for me

 

DIRW kinda occupies the same mid spot in my mind, but it also has quite a lot of top tier songs for me? Down, Take Me, We Owe This, Impossible, and You Belong Here.

I think You Belong Here is one I only really started to appreciate much later. Just really tightly crafter melodies.

Will add, B-sides are also pretty stacked, with I’d Like to Die and Hell or High Water.

Honestly I feel like To The Wolves, Art of War, and Depraved bring it down for me. They’re not really bad songs at all (except Wolves….sorry), but just feel like a step lower.

 

Depraved is an underrated closer

 

agreed re: B-sides. add All We Have too

 

New Surrender is the weirdest album for me, because I got into anberlin at the time and was all about it, but don’t really find myself revisiting any songs from it. The closest are probably Dissapear and Soft Skeletons. I used to be in love with Breaking too lol.

I finally got around to Paper Tigers earlier this year and it was at least fun to reminisce for a bit!

 

New surrender felt like SUCH a step down from cities. I was shocked at how derivative the song writing felt

 

New Surrender isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but it's a classic case of a major label pushing deadlines and the band coming up with half-baked ideas in crunch time including re-recording a song that didn't really need to be, but they lucked out in it becoming their most popular song ever, which probably sustained them for longer than they would have otherwise. It does have about 5-6 songs I really like though. Paper Tigers, Breaking, Disappear, and Haight Street off the top of my head are pretty good. The close felt like them going, "Well people liked Fin, let's try to do that again" and it was very diminishing returns to me.

 

NS didn’t feel rushed to me so much as it just felt like the band writing into a sound that nobody wanted from them. I do look back fondly on Retrace (and paper tigers of course) though.

also, to the wolves is great but art of war puts me to sleep

 

New Surrender always felt like a lower tier Anberlin album for me, but even lower tier Anberlin is better than many other bands' entire discographies. It doesn't get nearly as much replay value from me as their other albums, but I still enjoy going back to it from time to time.

 

It's wild because I feel the opposite. Really don't like Retrace, and I think Art of War is one of the best songs on DITW. The chorus is so much better executed than the one for To the Wolves. To the Wolves had a great intro and verses and the chorus is so... blah to me, which brings me to the glaring issue of DITW: too much repetition of a phrase or a single word for choruses. Closer is the main offender to me.

 

Im the total opposite, really don’t like that opener but like the rest of the album. It’s too wordy and clunky, kind of like Mae’s Sometimes I Can’t Make it Alone that came out around this time.

Listening to the acoustic live album from Devotion made me really appreciate DITW, Stephen sounds great on those (and every) track

 

really? that song just hits, love the riff, reminds me of older anberlin and then the rest of the album is mid for me. a lot of lower mid-tempo songs. its not bad i just couldn't get into it. and i've tried since and can never finish the album. stoked you like it though! thats the album that turned me off anberlin until the comeback EPs came out, i was like fuck yeah anberlin got their spark back!

 

I feel like I remember Stephen addressing the lyric repetition thing in those tumblr posts he made breaking down each song (do those still exist?). IIRC he felt like he really struggled with writing lyrics during New Surrender and DITW, but felt like he got out of that slump with Vital.

 

Okay, I have an Anberlin question/conspiracy theory that I’ve realized I’ve never actually said out loud:

Did Stephen pick the name Anchor and Braille so it would literally always be right below Anberlin in everyone’s list of artists?

 

@anberlinlyrics on Tumblr

 

The lyrics are what really ruin Dark is the Way for me. So much repetition.

 

If you take the best songs from NS and Dark you’d have one fucking hell of an album. Albeit with some drastic difference in tone and production, but still. Some all time Anberlin songs on both of those albums.

On the other hand, if you took the worst from each album, woof.

 

I don't think anything from those two would even crack my top 30 Anberlin songs.

 

dark is the way is probably my third favorite anberlin record after lowborn and cities, haha